Christine

I had an 8-hour layover in London, and I went into town and met my dear friend Christine, who came down on a train from Yorkshire. We actually had somewhat less than six hours, because I had to get back to Heathrow for my flight to South Africa.

We met in 1970, my first trip to the U.K. We were young pups then. She was just out of secondary school, was still living with her parents in their little house in Saltaire, facing the Salt Mill where both her parents had worked. She hadn't even met the man she'd marry. Total strangers, we met and felt as if we'd known each other for years.

Forty years later, we've spent only occasional days together, but we have stayed connected by words. Words tumbled out of us like waterfalls on this day, punctuated by smiling silences, tearful silences. The love, the loss, and the life we've shared these forty years. We have been a long way together, almost always apart. In letters, in visits every decade or so, in emails now.